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Animals

Blind as a Bat?
British scientists have created a cane inspired by bats to help blind and partially sighted people find their way around. (Equipment to help visually-impaired people, guessing words from context, giving descriptions, reference words.)Upper-Intermediate

Dead as a Dodo
Scientists at Oxford University have extracted DNA from a dodo, the famous flightless bird hunted to extinction in the 17th century. (DNA, endangered animals, summarizing, question words.)Advanced

Dogs of war
A descendant of the San Francisco attack dog that went wild and mauled a young woman to death is being advertised for sale in a local newspaper as "bad to the bone, protective and stable,". The owners of the killer dog have now been found guilty of murder. Dogs in Europe have killed an elderly woman and a young boy. Who is responsible? (Dogs, controls on dogs, verb participles used as adjectives, debate, essay writing.) WARNING: The news content in this lesson may be upsetting to some students.Upper-Intermediate Lesson Updated: 4 April 2002

Animal Chatter
Max talks about the words we use to describe the noises animals make.Intermediate

Caged In
A popular Indian film actor crammed himself into a tiny cage and asked for compassion for chickens as part of a "Compassion, Not Cages - Go Veg!" campaign by an international animal rights group. (Animal rights, vegetarians, protest, farming, 'so' linking two clauses.)Elementary to Pre-Intermediate

It's a dog's life
A plush, furnished place with televisions, a Feng Shui garden, showers, piped music and an aromatherapy unit - for homeless dogs! Funded largely from money left in a will. (Wills, leaving money to people and organizations, debate, designing an advertisement, English expressions.) Upper-Intermediate

Shelter Pup Finds Career
A dog success story: A puppy left at a Toronto-area animal shelter last summer has risen through Canada's detector dog program to earn a job as a drug-sniffer. (Animals rescuing people stories, proverbs, word order.)
Intermediate

Birds of a Feather
Singapore is fighting an army of crows plaguing its high-rise apartments. Rome is battling swarms of starlings that swoop down on Rome's historic piazzas and baroque churches by broadcasting bird "distress calls'' over loudspeakers. (Scientific study, pests, proverbs, writing letters, relative clauses.)Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate

Wild Elephants
Wild elephants killed four people and injured 15 others while rampaging through two villages in southeastern Bangladesh. (Problems related to protecting endangered animals, elephants, the Simple Past and Simple Present Tenses.)Elementary

Traveling Great Whites
Great white sharks have always been thought to stay in their own small territories. However, a new study shows that these massive creatures are in fact world travelers, with some swimming thousands of miles into the open ocean on mysterious migrations. (The passive, punctuation, Internet research)Upper-Intermediate

Stowaway Cat
This is about an international rescue mission to rescue a New Zealand cat that stowed away on a ship to South Korea. (Ships, ports, rescue, stowaway, quarantine, phone call, use of "tried to... but... too...".)Elementary

Cyber Lambs
Ten of New Zealand's 44 million sheep have their own web site, after Japanese school children adopted them. (Animals, the Internet, using 'at least', 'or more', 'over' and 'plus' with numbers.)
Elementary

Pass the Pit Bull, Please
A Californian man who used to have two pets -- a pit bull terrier and a Burmese python -- now has only one -- a 200-pound python with a pit bull-sized bulge. (Pets, animals, dangerous pets, must + infinitive of verb, must have + past participle of verb.)Pre-Intermediate

Turkeys Galore
Each Thanksgiving, Americans eat about 535 million pounds of turkey, and a turkey-cooking hotline gives advice to people with problems a trucker who needed to know how long to cook a turkey on the engine of his truck, and a Kentucky woman who panicked when her tiny chihuahua jumped inside a turkey carcass and couldn't get out. (Thanksgiving, holidays and festivals, synonyms, apostrophes, use of 'although' and 'even though'.)Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate

Mystery Caller
Staff at a Scottish safari park were shocked to discover a chimpanzee was the mystery caller who had kept phoning their mobile phones. (Animals, mobile phones, sequencing, writing a postcard, compound nouns.)Elementary

Tennis Love
Tennis chiefs could be forced to take action soon as the top women players continue to bring dogs to tournaments. (Sport, pets, summarizing.)Intermediate

A Dog's Bark
A dog's bark stopped 180 Brazilian prisoners from escaping. (Animals, prison escape, word order for questions, 'to' used to give the purpose of an action.)Elementary

Family of Ducks
Two duck stories. Tina Chen is very busy. She is mother for 16 ducklings in her 12th floor apartment. When a family of ducklings fell down a Vancouver sewer grate their mother asked a police officer for help. (Amazing true stories, ordering events, questions, headlines, using 'so' and 'because'.) Elementary

Stunt Animals
As an employee looking after stunt animals on movie sets, this woman was called upon to even protect a cockroach! (Hollywood, animal protection, movies, articles)
Advanced

Skunks and yogurt
Skunks jam their heads in to these containers as they are looking for yogurt and then get trapped and die but will the company responsible help?(Environment, packaging, animals, advertising, '-ing' forms)
Upper-Intermediate

Sea 'Monster' Hijacks Boaters
Two Florida boaters met a real sea monster this week when their craft was dragged for hours by a powerful creature. Do this lesson to find out what it was. (Fishing, boats, the passive voice)
Intermediate

Plant and Animals
The African honeyguide is a bird that aid hunters in rare, sweet partnership. Plants, like humans, also talk to each other and warn of impending danger. (plants, research, animal communication, body language, 'by + verb + ing' when we want to express how something is done, homophones)
Intermediate

Monkey Business
Scientists have genetically engineered a monkey, the closest relative yet to a human to be genetically altered. What's next? (Genetic engineering, science, health, punctuation)Advanced

Mice Out For Dinner
Wanted: Pied Piper in Paris! Mice are on the loose. (pests, restaurants, Paris, '-ed and -ing' adjectives)
Upper-Intermediate

Is Anybody Listening to Me?
It has one article saying that a dog wagging its tail could be eyeing you as its next meal (and a snarling dog could be just smiling at you), and another article saying that humans and animals communicate with one another telepathically all the time. You can try this at home! (Dogs, animal communication, body language, conjunctions)Upper-Intermediate to Advanced

Lost Animals
This is about runaway animals - rabbits and a kangaroo hopping around a London suburb and a German motorway. (Kangaroos, rabbits, animals, escapes London, present perfect simple, nouns or verbs)Elementary

Keeping a City Clean
This is about, well, animal droppings. Did you know dog poop, when scooped, costs 10 francs a kilo in Paris? If that is your cup of tea, then do this lesson!(Cities, pets, Paris, to + infinitive, purpose)
Intermediate

How Good Is Your Nose?
This is about: a dog that has been trained to smell money; mechanical dogs that can smell land mines; and the high cost of a dog at the United Nations that can smell bombs. (Working dogs, dogs smelling for money, bombs and land mines, prepositions.)
Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate

Float Like a Butterfly...
Is 'butterfly', that symbol of lightness and delicacy, an example of a reversal? Once upon a time, was the word in fact 'flutter-by'. Find out what Max has to say!Intermediate

True or False?
Do penguins topple over when they peer into the sky watching planes and helicopters fly over? That was the question asked in the Instant Lesson 'Navy Helicopters and Birds', where we looked at plans scientists had to find an answer to this important question. Now we have their answer! It's in our lesson called "True or False?". (Animals, experiments, helicopters, transport, referencing, pronouns.)Pre-Intermediate

Navy Helicopters and Birds
Do penguins fall over backwards when watching aircraft fly overhead? Two British scientists are traveling to the south Atlantic to find the answer! This lesson is about their plans. (Penguins, experiments, helicopters, abbreviations)Pre-Intermediate

Bird Danger
Damage by birds and other wildlife striking aircraft annually amounts to well over $600 million for U.S. civil and military aviation and over 219 people have been killed worldwide as a result of wildlife strikes since 1988. The newest employee at Southwest Florida International Airport works like a dog and his job is literally for the birds.(Solutions to bird strikes at airports, understanding pie graphs, dogs, alligators, verb forms, subject + verb)
Upper-Intermediate

Strange Stories
Foxes shooting people, dogs shooting people and cows shooting cows. Confused? You won't be after this next lesson from English-to-go. (guns, accidents, articles)Pre-Intermediate

Fish and Chimneys
Father Christmas is not alone. Read about this amazing survival story and unusual weather. (Strange stories, birds, fish, revision of verbs in the past simple)
Pre-Intermediate

Foot-and-Mouth
The current foot and mouth epidemic in Britain. How did it get there? Do the lesson and find out.
(Foot-and-Mouth, disease, Britain, health, the passive)Intermediate

Animal Friends
A dolphin who saves people and a legal battle to possibly save a dog. (Animals, DNA testing)
Pre-Intermediate

A Fishy Business
Sadly fish stocks recover far more slowly from overfishing than was previously thought.(The environment, overfishing, conservation, modal verbs - may and might.)Intermediate to Upper-Intermediate

A Lost Pet
Residents were warned to tread carefully as police and zoo officials were on the hunt for a deadly, runaway viper.
(Snakes, keeping dangerous pets, Canada, word order)
Upper-Intermediate

24-hour plane delay
A pet squirrel grounded a jetliner for a day by playing hide-and-seek with engineers and airline crew. (Pets, diary writing, adverbs of time, spend + -ing verbs and prepositions)
Upper-Intermediate

Meeting People
Are you shy? Can't make small talk or start a conversation? Get a dog. Why?? Read on and find out just how loyal and brave these wonderful creatures can be!!
(Dogs, meeting people, friends)
Intermediate